Reading Rainbow – encourages children to read books but never has an episode about The Art of the Deal. Sad!

Planned Parenthood – who needs to plan parenthood? Just grab ‘em by the pussy and whatever happens, happens. (Always have a rock-solid pre-nup though, since women are always after your money.)

The Shriners – Anti-American tiny cars. When did America stop winning? When we stopped having big cars. Also, those things don’t run on coal so they’re destroying American jobs!

4-H Club – Animal husbandry, are you kidding me? Marriage is supposed to be between one man and one woman, then another woman whenever he wants to switch things up.

The Democrats – Losers. Always whining about how they won the popular vote. Since when is being President a popularity contest? By the way, they didn’t actually win the popular vote, I did. If I’d wanted to win the popular vote I would have done it. Next time I will, believe me. Looking to beat Stalin’s record of 99.9% in 2020!

As Donald Trump attempts to put questions about President Barack Obama’s birthplace behind him, another controversy, this time about Trump himself, is starting to gain attention. And like so many other questions about the Republican Presidential candidate, from his sewer rat’s nest hair-do to his inexplicably orange skin to his tiny baby hands, this one has to do with his body: in this case, his penis, and specifically its girth, or more properly its lack of girth.

If the rumours about Trump’s penis that are starting to become more than the whispers that have long-circulated in New York, Miss Universe pageants, Atlantic City, and Trump family reunions are being spoken out loud more and more frequently, Mr. Trump has only himself to blame. By constantly talking about his sexual conquests, both in and out of marriage, he has surely courted this controversy: women are happy to put unsatisfying sexual experiences behind them and be discrete, especially when it comes to the physical deficiencies of sexual partners, and that’s even more true when it comes to self-aggrandizing, shit-heel billionaires. But Trump insisted on airing his dirty laundry in public, and it’s no surprise that discussion eventually turned to his tighty-whities and how they were never particularly full.

At the same time, his inability to allow the snarky comments about his small hands pass without comment led ex-partners to compare notes and reporters to connect the dots. (You know what they say about men with small hands.) Trump is notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to criticism of himself, and more and more talk is centering on his equally thin-skinned penis, which rumours indicate is of average length, but exceedingly small in circumference, or in common parlance, “girth.”

The small but growing (which cannot be said about Trump’s penis, according to one ex-girlfriend: “It’s just small”) “girther” movement is demanding assurances from the Trump campaign that his penis is of at least average American girth, while criticizing the so-called “lengthers” who are focused on its length. “We in the Republican Party, and others who want to Make America Great Again, are not concerned about penis length,” claims a spokesman, “because we know that our diversity is our strength. The important thing is that the President has a penis, whatever length it happens to be. But it would just make all of us more comfortable to know that The Donald’s packing something substantial. Americans of all colours and lengths know that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are not the answer to solving our problems. I mean, she doesn’t even have a penis!”

For his part, Trump insists that he has “tremendous girth, beautiful girth, it’s quite something… I can barely fit my hand around it, not that I need to masturbate, I have my pick of gorgeous women… believe me, there’s no issue down there!” When asked to have the distance between his ring finger and thumb measured, however, the candidate demurred, saying that he couldn’t allow that since he was under audit.

Superman’s weakness is not so much Kryptonite as it is his moral code: he won’t kill or be otherwise immoral (although he has been known to be deceitful, especially when dealing with with foes such as Mr Mxyzptlk). He is the paragon of virtue, the defender and best example of The American Way. But his virtue can hold him back: he refuses to kill, but how often has this refusal led to greater suffering later on? How many times has one of his foes escaped, only to wreak further havoc, surely including death? Granted, death and pain are not so much a part of the Superman universe compared to Batman, but certainly amid the destruction wrought by battling titans in the middle of Metropolis, sometime somewhere someone has been killed. What responsibility does Superman feel? Not as much, it seems, as characters like Spider-Man or Batman, characters whose entire motivations for being superheroes are based on feelings of guilt over the loss of loved ones or the desire to avenge their deaths. Superman, however, despite the loss of both parents (biological and adoptive) is a pretty together guy. He represents the happy, well-adjusted face of American culture, with a never-say-die, can-do attitude. He is the principled volunteer who went to war to make the world safe for liberty, whereas Batman is the hardened veteran whose motivations are good but just might burn down your village to save it. Therefore, Batman is the stronger character, even though he has no super-powers, because he’s willing to do nearly anything to win the fight. Superman is held back by his morals, which are ultimately more important to him than winning, and because of that, Superman is much more likely to lose. (It needs to be said that in the comic books, Superman of course never loses–he’s too powerful. What we’re talking about here is the real world, if characters like Superman and Batman existed in it.)

Sports are integral to the American experience. Baseball is famously “America’s pastime” and the Super Bowl is the biggest game in the world. Basketball, though invented by a Canadian, is a quintessentially American game that is rapidly expanding across the globe. And as much as Canadians will tell you that hockey defines our national identity, there are far more NHL teams in the United States than in Canada, and they’ve had much more success than Canadian teams over the last twenty years.

Many pundits divide America into Red and Blue states, but if there’s one thing Americans can agree on, it’s their love of sports. It crosses all boundaries: class, race, geography. Or does it? It’s interesting to take a look at the distribution of major league sports teams in the United States, and what it may mean for the country.

The “Big Four” sports are generally agreed upon to be Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey (even though college football or basketball are arguably bigger draws than hockey). These are the biggest professional leagues in America. There are 113 major league teams in the United States divided between these four sports, an average of more than two teams per state. But would it surprise you to know that all of these 113 teams are located in just 25 states, plus the District of Columbia? It’s true, which means fully half the states have no major sports team whatsoever. The concentration of teams in larger markets is well-known, but the fact that there aren’t more outliers dotted around the country in smaller population centres means that many Americans don’t have a local team to root for, in any sport. As a proud Montanan baseball fan, which team do you support? The closest teams are in Seattle, Colorado, or Minnesota, not even in neighbouring states. Here are the 25 states that have no major league sports teams:

New Mexico

Maine

New Hampshire

Vermont

Alaska

Hawaii

Connecticut

Rhode Island

Delaware

Virginia

West Virginia

South Carolina

Kentucky

Alabama

Mississippi

Nebraska

Iowa

Arkansas

Kansas

North Dakota

South Dakota

Wyoming

Montana

Idaho

Nevada

You might say that the divide between have and have-not states looks fair, being split 50/50, but look even further. Of the 113 major league teams, fully 48 of them are based in just five states: New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, and Texas. But here’s where it gets interesting from a political perspective: only 36 teams reside in states that vote predominantly Republican. And of the 25 states that have no teams whatsoever, 15 of them–or 60%–are Republican strongholds. Just 15 states hold 77 of the nation’s major teams… and those states vote overwhelmingly Democrat.

So what do Republicans have against sports in America? Why have they left it to the Democrats and their Blue states to dominate sports?Are they too busy shooting guns, stopping a woman’s right to choose, and having tea parties to enjoy well-executed double-plays, fast breaks, Hail Mary passes, and goals in the five-hole? Why have the Republicans fallen down in providing a local sports experience for their hard-working, family-values constituents?

That’s an old, stupid joke, meant to prey upon misrepresentation of facts and the eagerness of people to think they’re clever. I mean really, when someone asks you a question like that, you know it has to be a joke or a trick of some kind, but most of us still answer February, because we think that’s the smart answer, even though if we were smarter we’d know we were being set up for a punchline.

You’ll often hear about someone born on February 29th celebrating their “fourth” birthday when they’re really 16, as if a year only passes when it hits a certain calendar date. Perhaps we should just induce birth so that no one is born on the 29th. That would settle that debate real good. On the other hand, if I had a child, I’d love for it to be born on February 29th, so that I’d only have to buy it presents once every four years. That’s the reason I got married on the 29th.

Today I was thinking about the old saying about March coming in and leaving like either a lamb or a lion… but if it’s a leap year, and February 29th is like a lion, and March 1st is like a lamb, I think we’ve been cheated.

Every leap year, a donkey and an elephant poke their heads out of their dens and say, “Shit, this is the guy we have to vote for as President this year?”

As the deadline to raise the US debt ceiling approaches and Americans and financial markets become more and more concerned about the inability of politicians to come to an agreement, the rhetoric around Washington, D.C. has become elevated. Here are some excerpts from recent speeches:

“The term ‘debt ceiling’ is just a metaphor which places limits on American growth… let no one tell America we have limits! Imagine that America doesn’t live in a house with a single ceiling, but lives in an apartment complex with many, many ceilings… I think we can agree that there is almost no end to America’s potential to borrow and spend and grow and borrow again…!”

“Someone once told us that man would never fly… but the Wright Brothers proved them wrong. Later, someone said that it was impossible to fly faster than the speed of sound… but Chuck Yeager said ‘Fuck that shit.’ Then people said we couldn’t go to the moon… and President Kennedy, in his eloquent way, said ‘Lick my balls, commies!’ Anyway, my point is, you’re telling me we can’t raise a fucking debt ceiling? Bullshit.”

“Okay, if we can’t raise the debt ceiling, can we build a dormer or something to give ourselves a little more room? Plus, it’ll allow a little natural sunlight to come into America, and if we build it south-facing, maybe we’d even save on some heating costs. I know this guy who can do it cheap, and if we buy the supplies from Walmart we’ll save tons…”

“If we can agree to build a debt roof, rather than raising the debt ceiling, then we’ll have all sorts of room in the debt attic, allowing us to continue to borrow for years to come. I have the experience, the knowledge, and the dedication… I understand the working man. It’s better to do one job well than two jobs… not so well. Can we fix it? Yes we can!”

“I am calling on all Republicans to support my plan, not to raise the debt ceiling, which is what the President wants, but to build a separate ‘debt doghouse’ into which we could put all the excess spending that Obama (who wasn’t even born here!) is forcing upon the American people… America isn’t going ‘broke’–it’s going ‘Barack’! Who let the dogs out? Obama! Who’s going to put them back in the doghouse? The Republicans!”